cybertariat means A proletarian class who perform repetitive, unskilled, and low-paid digital labour (such as moderating online platforms or click farming). Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 100 out of 100.
Why “cybertariat” is a great word
CYBERTARIAT — [Noun] The class of workers performing repetitive, digitally mediated tasks for low wages, often in invisible and psychologically taxing conditions. The term is a blend of cyber- (relating to computers or networks) and proletariat (the working class), coined in 2000 by researcher Ursula Huws. Unlike the “proletariat” (which conjures the physical toll of factories) or the “gig worker” (which suggests a degree of autonomy), the cybertariat denotes a collective submerged in a silent, spectral factory. It is the content moderator scrolling through an abyss of trauma, the click farmer in a warehouse generating false engagement, and the data labeler endlessly tracing outlines to train sightless algorithms—the human substrate of a polished digital world, now its most expendable and haunted component.
Etymology
Blend of cyber- + proletariat. Coined by researcher Ursula Huws in a 2000 essay (see quotation below).
noun
- A proletarian class who perform repetitive, unskilled, and low-paid digital labour (such as moderating online platforms or click farming).“It is apparent that a new cybertariat is in the making. Whether it will perceive itself as such is another matter.”